Wednesday, November 27, 2013

• Hobby Lobby v Obamacare To The Supreme Court

Long story Short: Hobby Lobby is a hobbyist story catering to people who
dabble in arts and crafts, run by a very Christian family. They have
said that it is against their Christian beliefs to force them to provide
contraception and abortion in the health care insurance they provide to
their employees. They have spend gobs of money fighting Obamacare.

Obama
basically has told Hobby Lobby and the Catholic Church, and also
importantly Catholic Charities (who handle among other things adoption
services in a Catholic, Christian principled manner), among others that you all can just shut down if
you have to but you must provide these services and procedures in your
insurance, even if it's against your religious beliefs.

Hobby Lobby has gone through two or three layers of court proceedings and
the last two decisions gave exact opposite decisions, one saying that
they don't have to go along with it on the basis of religious beliefs,
the other that they must indeed comply.

The LA Times is
arguing that it is preposterous that a company or corporation (or even
perhaps an organization like Catholic Charities) can in and of itself
have religious beliefs. But a company or organization was found by this
court to be a group of people, people with beliefs all the
same, when the Supreme Court found a few years ago that corporations,
companies, organizations and political action groups have the right to
speak out, spend money on advertising and donate money to campaigns -
just like any person.

This infuriated the Democrats, and it has
them very upset now, today, because it could be the same general
principle that ultimately gives Hobby Lobby the freedom to decline to
offer medical services to their employees that run against their
religious convictions. And if they win, all companies, all employers
and organizations - including Catholic Charities - will most likely be
able to opt out.

The 10th Circuit, citing the Citizens United decision holding that
corporations have a 1st Amendment right to communicate about political
campaigns, concluded that Hobby Lobby likewise had a right to religious
freedom. But while there was long-standing precedent that some
corporations have free-speech rights, the notion that profit-making
businesses engage in the exercise of religion is a novel — and
nonsensical — one.